The Passion

Monday, January 16, 2012

Track Night tonight is at 7:30 pm instead of 6:30 pm, at the Santa Monica Track.

Mobility:
Keg Drill, 2 minutes
Ankle Mobility, 1 minute each leg

Warm up:
With Barbell:
10 Front Squats
10 Strict Press
10 Hang Squat Cleans
10 Split Jerks

With Light Weight:
10 Squat Cleans
10 Split Jerks

Skill/Strength:
1-1-1-1-1 Clean and Jerk

WOD:
For time:
100 Dumbbell Hang Squat Clean Thrusters (35/25)
-Perform 5 Burpees at the top of every minute (starting after the first 60 seconds, not at the beginning of the wod)
-The dumbbells must drop below the knee each repetition

Cool Down:
10 Wall Extensions
2 minutes Plow Pose
10 Wall Extensions

Nick has passion!

I was listening to Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, discuss a phenomenon he had witnessed years ago.  He went on a lecture tour with the founder of the Zone diet, Dr. Barry Sears, where he encountered something that he had not seen in the gym:  people that ate perfectly balanced food but did not exercise at all.

  Coming from the gym atmosphere, Glassman was used to people that exercised regularly but didn’t pay attention to their nutrition.

  What they found in looking at these two groups of people was surprising:  there were no significant differences in improvement of ANY health metric (ie, cholesterol, body fat comp, strength, etc) between the two groups!  In other words, if someone came to you with lower cholesterol you couldn’t say if they got that way by eating better or by exercising more.

  Even if they came to you and could now do more pullups than before, it was not necessarily due to training; the person may have dropped body fat from a balanced diet and now are able to do more pullups since they weigh less!

This truth hit me hard.

We offer proudly that we do not make anyone eat a certain way.  Our stance has always been to provide resources and support to make your own educated decisions.  We have nutrition challenges, a nutrition blog and food delivery services to encourage you along the way.  If you show up to the gym regularly and make no changes to your diet or lifestyle, that is your choice.  But the reality above suggests that we must discuss what we eat just as much as what we are doing in the gym.  The purpose of our training is not to get better numbers on the whiteboard, but to get better at life!  Our argument is that if you make these two items the foundation of your daily life, you will become a profoundly different, happier and healthier individual:  Eat meat, vegetables, quality fat, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar   AND  Perform constantly varied functional movements at high intensity.

Please note:  As much as we want you to make your own decisions and develop a sense of individual responsibility, we understand that the information can be overwhelming.  Our plan is to develop a Guide for long term success, much like our On Ramp Intro packet, that will outline common pitfalls that we have seen and answer some of the most frequently asked questions.